Shia Iraqi cleric condemns killing of 87 people in the suspected chemical attack in a rebel-held Syrian town Sadr meeting with advisers in Baghdad’s green zone in 2016 (AFP) raqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Saturday called on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, also calling on Washington and Moscow to stop intervening in the…

Amnesty International denounced the sentence as ‘harsh’ (AFP) An Egyptian court sentenced a lawyer to 10 years in jail for insulting the president and “inciting terrorism” in a Facebook post, a judicial official said on Thursday. The court in the coastal city of Alexandria also sentenced the defendant, Mohammed Ramadan, to five years’ house arrest…

President Trump and his administration are offering the country a graduate-level course in the selling of the presidency. Much attention has focused on how Mr. Trump is using the White House for personal gain, but many other officials, including members of his family, friends and close aides, also stand to rake it in at the…

31st March 2017 Mr. Saber Chowdhury MP Ex-officio President Inter-Parliamentary Union Dear Mr. Chowdhury Sub: Release Bin Quasem and other detainees We write to express our serious concern about the large number of enforced disappearances taking place in Bangladesh in the last few years, in particular, the case of Bangladesh barrister…

Press Release 31st March 2017 Sub: End forced disappearances in Bangladesh “We write to express our serious concern about the large number of forced disappearances taking place in Bangladesh in the last few years, in particular, the case of Bangladesh barrister Mr. Ahmad Bin Quasem” wrote the chairman of Citizens International Mohamed Idris, in…

Politicians and media figures who supported Trump against Clinton have called the seven-country ban racist and likely to increase terrorism Donald Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi meet in New York in September 2016 (AFP) Egyptian politicians and pro-government media have condemned Donald Trump’s controversial ban against Muslims travelling to the US, calling it…

NEW DELHI: Former Navy chief Admiral Laxminarayan Ramdas has written an open letter to President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi condemning the attacks on minorities and Dalits under the rule of the current government. “The Hinduism I knew and experienced was gentle, inclusive, and filled with extraordinary diversity,” writes Ramdas in the letter.…

Republican candidates have been making their pitch to the most powerful pro-Israel lobby in the US. The American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most powerful pro-Israel lobby in the US, is holding its biggest annual conference yet with around 13,000 delegates in Washington. For all those bidding to become the next US president, it…

Egypt’s then-president-elect Mohamed Morsi addresses tens of thousands of Egyptians in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on 29 June, 2012 (AFP) The British government’s investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood had serious shortcomings that have damaged the country’s reputation for fair dealing, parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee said in a new report on “political Islam” published on…

The court also issued a 3 year sentence in absentia against Hamza Zobaa, an Egyptian TV presenter on a reportedly Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Turkish channel, for broadcasting false news and inciting violence against the state A security vehicle stationed at Tahrir Square in Cairo on November 11, 2016 (Photo:Reuters) A Giza court issued on Monday prison…